On World Environment Day (June 5), Dutch potato breeding company HZPC highlighted the benefits potato breeding has on yield, carbon footprint and water use.
Effects on Yield
Over the past 15 years, an extra 10 million tons of potatoes have been grown by EU farmers annually thanks to potato breeding. That’s more than the entire annual potato output of Poland and means the EU can export potatoes instead of importing them.
Today’s European potato harvests would be 20 percent lower and 7 percent more expensive for consumers without the last 15 years’ plant breeding advances. Sixty percent of the growth in potato harvests can be attributed to plant breeding.
Effects on Carbon Footprint
Without plant breeding, Europe would need an extra 47 million acres of farmland to produce the same amount of food (all food, not just potatoes). Turning 47 million more acres of forests, wetlands and other habitats into farmland would release 3.4 billion tons of carbon dioxide.
Annually, that’s equivalent to all the greenhouse gas emissions from traffic in Germany, or the annual carbon dioxide emissions of a country like the Netherlands.
Effects on Water Use
Plant breeding has enabled EU farmers to save nearly 55 billion cubic meters of water—enough to fill 22 million Olympic swimming pools—since 2000. Plant breeding is helping EU agriculture to meet the objectives of the EU Adaptation Strategy for climate change and helping manage droughts as our climate changes.